Welcome back to the podcast. I’m glad you’re here. Today’s episode with Chef Jamie Kenyon. He is the executive chef and partner in an concept in New York City, that most competitive city, called Bottino, and we talk all about leadership and accountability and And getting the most out of your team.

It’s about company culture performance and perfectionism, which is so important to deliver consistency in the kitchen. He is such an inspired chef with a French background. He’s worked for some pretty illustrious restaurants, including Daniel in New York City, which needs no introduction, and many others.

French influence turned Italian, and now he’s mastering the kitchen. And he gives us his best advice on how to do just that. So stay tuned. You’re not going to want to miss this. Let me tell you a little bit about the Restaurant Rockstars Academy. Now you can assign any course in the academy to an unlimited number of your team to learn and put cost controls and financial maximization of profit in place and to train your staff in salesmanship and hospitality, marketing programs that deliver return on investment that you can track and you can track your team’s progress.

It’s all at the Restaurant Rockstars Academy at restaurantrockstars.com. Now, on with the episode.

You’re tuned in to the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast. Powerful ideas to rock your restaurant. Here’s your host, Roger Beaudoin.

 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. So glad you’re here. And Chef Jamie, how are you today? Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I’m doing well, thank you. Excellent. We’re going to talk all about restaurants and your fascinating career, but I’ve got to ask you, being from Manchester, England in the UK, you must be a football fan.

And boy, those, Manchester people are so Manchester United, so passionate about their sport and about their team. And I’m sure that’s you as well.

Oh, 100%. I don’t think I miss a game. I’m a workaholic, but I don’t remember the last time I missed a game, so definitely a lot of pride behind it.

Fantastic. Who’s the biggest rival? Is it Liverpool? Liverpool, yeah. City like to think they are, but that’s a small club. So yes, anyone listening, I apologize. I don’t apologize. Liverpool’s our biggest rival, yes.

Very good. Thanks for answering that. So let me ask you about your restaurant career. Why did you get into the restaurant business and what were your early influences?

Take us, tell us your story. I I was

actually in college. I was studying kinesiology and I wanted to be a physical therapist, actually, hopefully for Manchester United. And I always had loved and school. I did okay in school. I didn’t love school particularly, but I kept on with it and I thought it was the right move and I’d always like cooking at home.

I’d always love to go to restaurants and it was over going into my junior year that I one summer decided I’m done. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to cook. So I dove in, with two feet went to culinary school and honestly what really inspired me is so the books, but really like the cooking shows that I and Chef America and how those guys do all this gastronomic crazy stuff.

And I thought that’s so interesting and cockily. I thought I could do that. So I really got inspired by that. And I just thought I’d give it a go. I thought it was so interesting and fascinating.

Did you have natural talent right from the beginning? Or did you really have to work at the skills?

Because, being a culinary professional, you’ve got a lot of skill sets. It starts with knife work, of course, and then you get into sauces and some people branch out into, the pastry side of things and the baking and all that kind of stuff. And then there’s influence as well. Now, you’ve got an English background, of course, but you worked for an illustrious French chef.

Now you’re an Italian. It’s like what a well rounded skill set, but Does that come naturally to you, or did you really have to work at it?

No, I don’t think it really comes naturally to anyone. I think anyone that says it does, it’s a bit of a fairy tale. If you have, you’ve got to put your head down and you’ve got to work, you’ve got to start from the bottom, work your way up, start from peeling veggies.

Prep, cleaning lettuces, work your way up to butchering, to cooking sauté, making pasta. I really had to work at that, especially in New York City. The guys you work with there, they’re, it’s so cutthroat, especially when I first started. When I was at Danielle Alone, you’d sit there and see people, crank people’s ovens up really high to have them not.

be as successful as them. There’s a lot of cutthroat in the kitchens back then, a lot of competition. So you really had to put your head down and work and just, watch your back at the same time. But yeah it’s something you can’t just walk in and think you’re going to be the best chef in the world.

You’ve got to learn everything from everyone and really put your head down.

And be humble and be a sponge for knowledge and learn as much as you can from different people. Did you have any early mentors in your career?

At the beginning, I would say Daniel Boulud really helped me out a lot. I, again, started very low with them.

I literally was the guy that took the prep in, cleaned the vegetables, did knife work, picked the parsley. And at first you thought, this is so boring, but Daniel Boulud would be there all the time. He’d be over your shoulder giving you an earful if something didn’t look right.

And you realize how important that was. And A, you respect the guy, he’s incredibly talented, but that would really inspire you to go, okay, this is important for a reason. It starts from the ground up. And that really got me into having a lot of pride with what I did.

Especially again, like picking parsley, you think it’s a no, no job. It’s a nothing situation, but it’s super, super important. You’ll be amazed.

So tell us about some of your early career restaurants that you worked in and how you moved up different. Did you work different positions in the beginning once you got your basic skills and then you specialized in a certain type of cuisine and that sort of thing?

Yeah, so I started with French when the culinary school I went to was French as well, so I stuck with Danielle for about a year, and then, again, it was so intense, it was impossible to move up, so I was like, alright, if I need the next step, I have to make a move. So I stuck with French for a bit longer, I went to Barbalood uptown, and I started in the salad station, and I’d helped with making all the charcuterie and the terrines and all that.

And that was super fascinating, but then I slowly started losing interest in French food. And I always loved Italian food. Pasta, especially. I thought pasta is fascinating, really fascinating to make to make the sauces, everything. So I decided to dive into Italian. And that’s when I decided to make a move for Eataly, because they were just opening up their Flatiron location.

So I was one of the first hires there for a restaurant called Manzo, under the chef Michael Toscano, who was this young Outrageously talented guy who was obsessed with perfection. And I dove into that as well. I’d learned everything I could from him. I would do anything they asked for me, butchering, especially making pastas, what kind of my, again, my passion comes from.

And I would come in early, I come in my days off just to literally make fillings or doughs or learn everything I could from those guys. And I would say that’s really got me. Got me, kicked off with Italian food. I actually left Eastley with Michael Toscano to open up a restaurant called Perla, which was wildly successful in the first few months.

It was exploded on the scene. It got top 10 restaurants in America. It was always booked up. Every reviewer was, writing incredible reviews about us. It really helped launch my career because I was able to move up quite quickly with Michael through that. And then through that job, I was a little bit, hot commodity, if you will, because I was in this restaurant, which was doing so well that I could bounce around from place to place from there, sticking with Italian, but having that kind of helped launch my career forwards it really has got me very passionate about Italian food, working with Michael.

You mentioned that this place just exploded in popularity. Did that happen overnight or did they have to work at it? Did they chase the press? Did the reviewers follow them? It’s is that the key to discovery? Just having influential writers talk about you, this restaurant, and then all the foodies in New York City read that and descend upon the place.

They have great experiences, word of mouth, social media. Is that the key? Is that what happens?

Yeah,

it’s absolutely key.

New restaurants, especially, they’ll get a buzz, right? No matter what, if you’re a new restaurant, you’ve got a bit of a name behind you, you’re going to get the buzz. But then it’s when the reviewers come in and the, there weren’t so many influencers back then, bloggers and things like that, they would come in, good reviews, that would pick up traction, pick up steam.

And then it just takes one review, especially like New York Times, right? Or, Time Out New York, any of those kind of like the big boys in there, they write a good review about you. And that’s it. You’re. It’s, you’re a rocket ship. You’re just blasting off into space. It’s insane. You cannot get a reservation at those restaurants once you get a good review.

That’s interesting also. Now, I own restaurants, but we never took reservations because I felt that we could turn our tables over more efficiently if it was a first come, first served restaurant, because you have the delays. People say, oh, I want a reservation at 7. They show up at 7. 15, you’re holding the table for them, or three of the parties show up, but they’re waiting for the other three, and they’re sitting there, and it’s like it’s costing the restaurant money, but all these illustrious restaurants or famous restaurants, higher end restaurants.

Must take reservations, don’t they? Would it work if you said, no, we have a first come first serve policy and that’s our policy? Have you ever been at a place that worked that way?

I’ve never, I think the way we used to do it again at those restaurants when you first started, it was pretty much a 50 50 split where half the reservation or half the tables you could book up and half you couldn’t.

So it forced people to try and get in that earlier reservation. Plus you got the walk ins, you got that line outside, which is a balance. Yeah, and they sit and go, what’s this line all about? So it was a nice balance between it. There are a few restaurants I’ve heard of that did that, especially before COVID, that didn’t take any reservations and it worked really well for them.

But for me, I think you need a bit of a split. It’s like my restaurant at Patino, we do the same thing. Every single table we leave an allotted amount just for walk ins.

There’s a lot of interesting ways of creating buzz, as you mentioned. There’s a restaurant here in Maine that’s become quite famous, and it’s called The Lost Kitchen, and they don’t take reservations.

It’s a lottery system, and you have to literally send in a postcard. And they’ve been doing this forever, and they select so many of these postcards in order Guarantee you a table for a certain time in the future. And it’s just gotten national, if not international acclaim. And I always thought that was really interesting.

Talking about reservations, I know our audience is really concerned about, okay, how do we make money? How do we create intrigue for our place? How do we get reviewers in the door? How do we just keep the relevance going? And I think. That’s really the topic. There’s New York City, one, is such a foodie city.

There’s, tens of thousands of restaurants in New York City of every possible cuisine, and you’re hot one minute, right? And then all of a sudden, people are on to the next thing. It’s like, how do you maintain that loyalty?

I think it’s a lot of, social media is a big one. It’s really keeping on top of that, getting good quality pictures, hosting at least three times, four times a week.

Connecting, when people tag you, you tag them back and you connect with social media, getting the influences in that’s, I want to say it’s free press. It’s not because usually buying a meal every now and then, but it’s about staying On top of, people’s minds, really through social media, I think it’s the strongest weapon that we have as restaurants.

Again, one blogger comes in that talks about, you’ve got the best burger in New York City, all of a sudden, or anywhere, any place that may, that may be. But the second you get that kind of acclaim, people want to come in, they want to try it, they want to post about it, and then from there You start trending and that’s what kind of brings you back in the spotlight.

So I, I’m not the biggest fan of social media. I don’t truly understand social media, but I understand how important it really can be. And it’s just, it’s such a great weapon for any restaurant to have, incredible weapon.

Thank you for answering that. That’s absolutely true. Is it much of a jump to start with such a heavy French influence and then suddenly completely switch cuisines into Italian?

Obviously there are crossover skills, but the nuances and the flavors and everything is all different. And there’s, is there a learning curve there? Was it much of a learning curve? And if you suddenly wanted to get into Brazilian cooking or some other type of cuisine, could you just Do it because you’ve built up such a skill set and does it come easily or quickly at that point when you’ve got experience?

I think it, there’s definitely a learning curve, right? There’s finesses, there’s different ways that people do things. At Daniel, we made pasta. It was completely different to how we made pasta at every other Italian restaurant I worked at. But I think at least French cooking, the base of it with knife skills, especially in making sauces and just nuances.

French food is very technical. It’s really technical. And I think that once you have that skill set, it does help a lot with transitioning towards if you were to do Brazilian, Italian, Chinese, whatever it is you want to do. I think it helps a lot, but there’s definitely a learning curve there.

And there’s such an influence on sauces, is there not, with French style cooking?

Oh, yes. And there’s so

many different ones.

Yeah, I honestly, I hope you don’t quiz me now because there are so many, I would fail that test miserably. There are too many sources there.

Let’s talk about your kitchen itself.

How would you describe the culture of your current kitchen? Being a chef, you’re a leader. I want to ask you about your leadership style, but let’s first start with the culture. What’s it like? And if you were to ask, here we go. If we were to ask or take a survey of your entire kitchen and ask them that question, would there be a common thread?

What would your people say?

I think so. I try and have it be. A, it’s definitely far from a stress free environment, but it’s, I like to have the guys hold themselves more accountable than I have to, they don’t want to make mistakes. They want everything to go out perfectly because there’s a lot of pride in what the guys do here, especially when they make, pasta from homemade, or if they butcher a whole animal, they don’t want to see any waste.

And I, I really make sure that they all hold each other accountable. Because that’s the best way to do it, because I can’t be there all the time. I can’t be in every single room and watch every single dish. But when these guys care so much about what they do, it’s great because I can hear in the background someone’s snickering in someone else’s ear that doesn’t look right, or this, that sauce is broken, or that salad’s overdressed or underdressed.

And it makes me so happy because, again, I can go double check it, but they’re just getting ridden by each other so much. It makes my job a lot easier and it makes the guests have much, much better time because the quality of their food is going to be the same pretty much every single time, right?

And that’s the most important thing about cooking is whatever the salad you serve the first first person of the day to the last, it’s got to be identical, right? Consistency is the most important thing about a restaurant, especially the food. And having the guys understand that and want to have that exact same, outcome for the customers is amazing for me.

So I would say that I am very lucky with the team I have in place right now. They are phenomenal. They truly care about the restaurant and they hold you accountable and they’re all best mates too, which is the best part about it. They all get along. They all go out for beers afterwards. So it’s just a very, it’s a happy kitchen.

I’ll say that. I’ve worked in a lot of kitchens where you’re going to say that is miserable. I’m having a miserable day today and what am I doing? I don’t think that happens very often in my restaurant.

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It seems like you’ve set the standard of expectation for perfectionism and they get that, they respect you for that, and then they each hold each other accountable and that is a very powerful thing and every meal, is very important and the plating and everything has to be perfect and isn’t it great to have the checks and balances where you can correct things Before they go out, because someone else may catch something that you missed, and they care.

It’s a whatever it takes attitude, and that’s a powerful formula in the kitchen.

Oh yeah it’s one of the strongest weapons we have, for sure.

So you can’t be everywhere, as you said, as every chef can’t be, especially when there’s multiple restaurants going, but leadership style is really important.

How would you describe yourself as a leader?

I I was told quite a few years ago, especially in kitchens, that there are two type of leaders in kitchens, right? There’s leaders that light a fire under somebody, right? Get a move on, get this, get that.

Leaders that light fires in people.

And it motivates them to want to do better. I like to be the person that fights a fire in people. I don’t want to sit there and scream at you all day. I don’t want to sit there and be frustrated that you’re not doing a good job. You’re lazy. You just don’t care about the job. If that’s the case, I’m just going to let you go.

If I see someone that really cares about what they do and I can teach them and I can make them proud of what they do, that builds a fire inside of them and it’s The best. They can leave this job and go wherever, and they care that much about their job, and they put that much passion into it.

For me, it’s the best thing to see. I especially hire a lot of guys who start from dishwashers, I move them all the way up, and they’re just so thankful for the opportunity. But they truly care, because they get Pay increases, they get the hours they want, they’re proud of what they’re doing.

And for me, it makes me proud to see them put that kind of effort in. So I just, it’s just not my style to sit there and go in someone’s ear all day or just belittle them in front of everybody. If they’re not interested in it, they can go. If they are interested and I can build them up from the inside, that’s the move, 100%.

Yeah, what you’re describing sounds so gratifying for you to know that you’re making a difference in people’s careers and that you’re giving them opportunities. And I think you said it best. It’s like this is a career that can take you anywhere around the world. You can have a very fulfilling life. You can make good money.

You can meet great people and live anywhere and do this as a craft. And if you can instill that in people it’s motivating in and of itself. But I think the key is they’re making your job easier, not harder for you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. That’s terrific. Let’s talk about your hiring approach. Do you hire for experience?

Do you hire for attitude? Does it, do you recognize something in someone, whether they’re experienced or not? And you say, you know what, I think this person could really work out well here. And even if it takes some training, we’ll get them there. Is that how you hire?

It’s all attitude for me.

If I’m being completely honest, I don’t have a single person in my kitchen right now, and I’m just talking about the line, not front of house or anything, in the kitchen, not a single person didn’t start off as a dishwasher. And they come in, they, you can see if they’ve got a good attitude or not. You can see if they work hard if they’re hungry for, and if they’re interested in the food too.

They’ll be sitting there sorting out the pots and the pans, and always looking over their shoulders, seeing what’s going on at the salad station or the meat station. And it’s so easy to see that. And then from there I’ll approach them and say, look, do you want to learn how to cook? It’s a yes or no answer.

And if it’s a yes, I start them off on salads and I build them up from there. But. I don’t hire right now anyone with experience, and it’s just because it’s been working out for me so well. I think that there are some times when you hire people with experience, and it’s hard to teach them anything, because you can get a cook and they somehow know everything, right?

That’s not how we do things at this old restaurant. You’re not at that restaurant, you’re at my restaurant. Now it’s time to do things my way. And when you’ve got someone who’s so new and so green, you can mold them to do your style of food and, your finesse. And it, for me, it’s just worked out perfectly over the past four years.

So it, I can’t recommend doing that enough.

You’re very fortunate to have that experience, but I would agree with you. It’s I would rather take someone with the right approach, the right attitude, the passion for what we’re doing and train them, and have other people mentor them as well. In best practices, and those people turned out to be my best hires as well, so I think you’re onto something for sure.

Have you ever had someone that work, that doesn’t necessarily work out in the back of house, and they move to the front of the house, and they shine out there, and they stay in your restaurant?

I had, we did have one guy do that and then he unfortunately left. It’s, It doesn’t happen too often for us.

I think there’s almost a bit of a loyalty behind it. They, once they’re back house, they like that lifestyle. They like that, commodity within the kitchen. So we don’t see that too often, if I’m being honest with you.

Now, how about specializing versus cross training your people in different stations?

Do they have a versatile skillset where one can jump to different stations as a backup plan if someone can’t, if someone gets sick or whatever, it’s hits them. By a bus, whatever happens. You know what I mean? But that’s such a versatile thing to have multiple people that can work multiple stations just in a pinch or just to keep their jobs.

Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. We I, once, once someone, I obviously start everyone off in the salad station. It’s about speed and kind of finesse, and then from there I move them to, towards the hot area. But I like to have everyone at least know three stations. At least three stations. And again, as you said, if someone calls out or if it’s a very slow day and I say, Hey.

Who wants to go home and someone’s a little tired, ship them off and we can, work two stations at once and yeah, it’s super, super important for us to have everyone know a couple of stations to keep it interesting and also to protect us, just in case you said, Someone’s sick, someone’s hungover, it’s, things happen.

People don’t show up sometimes. So all the time.

Are you able to find a restaurants are really intense, especially, being in the kitchen and just being a perfectionist that you are, but you also need a balance in your life. Do you have any spare time? Do you find that balance or is that challenging for you?

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I really struggle with it. I on top of the restaurant, I have two younger kids. So one’s three and a half, one’s one and a half. So they are great ages, but I am exhausted. If I had just one eighth of their energy, I would have a three Michelin star restaurant. I’ve never seen so much energy come from something so small.

So I think I really struggle with that aspect because when I get off work and I have a day off, I really just want to do it. to hang out with my kids, I want to spend as much time with them as possible. When I’m not working, I’m very much so working here, chasing after one of them, or one of them’s banged their head, or one of them’s hungry, it’s, I struggle big time with that.

I don’t know how people do it. I’m still figuring that one out.

Yeah, it’s even more difficult with young kids, but you definitely want to spend as much time because it’s true. Everyone says it goes by so fast, and it really does. But let’s talk about it. Is there such a thing as a typical day?

Like, how does your day begin? And how does your day end? And what happens during the day, if there is such a thing as a typical day for you?

There is no such thing as a typical day. I will have a plan of attack with, if I want to get a menu change or a dish or whatever it may be, you walk in and a delivery hasn’t shown up or someone’s not showed up to work or a pipe’s exploded or, Department of Health walk in, the fire department walk in, there’s, Never a dull moment.

So a typical day for me is a complete curveball. I could probably count on one hand where I’ve sat there and said, here’s my plan for the day, and then it completely gone to plan. It just doesn’t, it doesn’t happen for me, especially when you’re an owner. I have two other working partners who help out a lot, but a lot of it really falls on my shoulders to get done, which I’m happy to do, but yeah I’m always juggling meetings.

I’m always juggling someone cutting their finger or. A wine delivery coming in for the wrong restaurant. It’s just, it’s nonstop. So I truly have no set plans for my day. I walk in, I say, what’s going to happen? What can I get done? As long as the restaurant doesn’t burn down, it’s a successful day.

Yeah, I’m the kind of person where I set an agenda, and it frustrates me if I can’t stick to it, but you really have to be flexible and resilient in this business, so it’s a good thing I’m not the chef in the restaurant, because I’d just lose it.

Yeah, that happens sometimes, but yeah.

You mentioned menu changes. How often does your menu change?

I change it every season, so four times a year I do a massive change and then throughout that season I’ll maybe get two or three, obviously I’ll tweak dishes here and there, I’m like, this thing’s not working out, that’s a bit too spicy, that’s a bit too, whatever, sweet, and I’ll tweak it within, but I like to do four very large changes right at the beginning of each season, where I change at least fifteen dishes on the menu.

I’ve got a couple staple dishes, but. I really like to keep it different every single season.

Yeah, you mentioned staples. They’re those things that people would kill you if you ever took it off the menu. Your regulars absolutely love certain things, and, what about do you do any frequent off the menu specials in addition to the seasonal changes?

Just just random inspirations that you say, Okay, let’s put this out tonight.

Yeah, I go to the market so Union Square has a market every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and I go every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I get, the majority of our food I’ll get from there, but if I see something a bit different or something that I’m like, oh, that’s quite interesting, I’ll grab that and I’ll throw it on as a special.

Again, it keeps it interesting for me to if I do have that bit of free time, I’ve got this great case of tomatoes or this great zucchini or, whatever it may be. And I can just do something fun, which I think is interesting, and get some good feedback. And I can use that for inspiration for the following year’s menu, or just do it just for, just to change it up and to have the guests try something new.

I really do enjoy doing specials. It’s just finding the time, as you said before, which is a bit tricky.

Absolutely. What about the financial side of the business? Would you consider yourself really strong with the numbers?

I’m not the strongest person with financials. I know how to keep my food cost down.

I know what it needs to be. My other partners really had that on for me. They love numbers, especially my capital investor. Yeah, so lucky. I think he’s in love with numbers. He looks at them all the time. He texts me nonstop, like, why is this like that? Why, I want to answer, I don’t know.

I couldn’t tell you if I tried, let’s look into it together. But he’s so into that side of things. It works out so well for us, for me, because he is on top of everything. He’s making sure the food costs are down, rent’s not too high, he just. Can’t help himself but look into the numbers, looking ahead, this is how many hours you can give these people for a slow month.

I’m like, great, perfect, done. So it’s a, it’s really helpful to have someone like that in my team, a hundred percent.

Yeah. Restaurants have struggled with inflation and perhaps they’re still struggling with it and the cost of certain goods, and it just goes through the roof.

And there’s a point where you can’t keep raising prices and still provide the value that your guests come to expect. And, That’s when you have to make some shifts and some changes and some hard decisions. So it’s lucky you’ve got a partner that, that helps you with that.

Oh yeah. He’s it’s. It’s necessary because as I said, the inflation, even the new credit card, 3 percent tax they’re putting on there.

That’s a, that hits your bottom line hard. You’re hoping to get 10%, doing incredible, incredible year. And 3 percent of that goes away immediately because credit cards, it’s so frustrating to see. And it’s so scary to see as well. So it’s, inflation has not helped us at all.

And you feel bad for the guests, because as you said, your prices, our prices go up and up. And people do stop, start complaining. They say why is it so much, why is it so expensive? Life’s already expensive. So what’s expensive for us too? We have food going up. Our rent goes up 3 percent every year.

It’s just hard to keep up with it.

That’s true. Major cities, New York city included, and maybe especially have some of the highest costs just in infrastructure. in any restaurant city or town. The cost of a liquor license is prohibitive. Rents are through the roof. It’s like you really need to do some significant volume and keep turning tables and be profitable and have a bar program and all those things combine.

Now you have some specialty cocktails and you curate a certain bar menu as well. Tell us about the how the bar side works with the kitchen.

So we like to do it, it’s very similar, I’ve got a head bartender, his name’s Normalee, he’s incredible, he does the craziest things with drinks, he does some things, I’m like, that’s not gonna taste good, and I taste it, I’m like, that tastes amazing, how did you do that?

Wow, mixologist, yeah.

He loves it, he’s the mad professor with it, it’s brilliant, I love him. But he, he’ll say what do you see at the market recently? And right now there’s melon, there’s tomato, there’s, everything that’s sweet. He’s can you grab me three cantaloupes, two of these, a couple of peaches?

I’m like, great, no problem. Bring it all over to him. So he loves to marry it, his menu, to the restaurant menu, right? So it’s, you can have a prosciutto melon with cheese. As a dish, but he also made a prosciutto melon cocktail where he soaks prosciutto with rum. Again, you think it’s disgusting.

It’s delicious. I don’t know how it tastes so good, but he just goes crazy for it. And it works out so well for us because you can just pair these things so easily and it’s an easy sell for this front of house staff.

That’s amazing unto itself, and what an amazing hook that is for your restaurant.

But I’m also thinking about, in cooking, something that tastes really amazing to you. Everyone’s palate is different, but yet, somehow, he has a way, and you have a way, of presenting something that may sound a little odd or unusual, But it just works. And is that an experiment where is there like a focus group in your kitchen where you come up with something new and you’ll say, honestly, what do you think of this?

And everyone says, Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. You got to serve that. And then, you got a hit. Is that how it

works? Yeah. We always get everyone to line up. We have, Obviously every day we have a staff meeting where all the staff comes in, we talk about specials, and then we will give them some things to try, or as we’re making it throughout the day, we’ll have three or four versions of a drink, or whatever it may be, and they’ll come and taste it, and then they’ll rank it.

This is a win, this is god awful, or their idea is make it sweeter, get more bitters in there, and we really listen to them. No one’s too scared to sit there and say, this doesn’t quite work. Everyone really cares, and they really want the restaurant to be successful, which again, benefits me tremendously.

But they will give an honest opinion, give honest, even with the wine program, they’ll sit there and say, this wine’s super similar to this wine. Yeah, you’re right. So it’s great because you’re right. One person’s palate is totally different from somebody else’s.

Do you get involved in that?

Curating the wines and working with a sommelier or do you have skill in that to pair with your food? Like how do the wines get selected in your restaurant and do those change often or are they always pretty much staples?

They change quite often. Our general manager is obsessed with wines.

Loves to go to Italy all the time. He really loves Thai wines, which benefits the Italian restaurant, but I really stay out of his way with it. He will have me taste all the wines and I’ll be blown away. Some I like, some it’s just not my cup of tea, but he’s so into it that I just let him do his thing.

He truly is an expert in it. So I don’t want to insert myself too much towards his his views because I could very well mess it up for him and for the business. So I think that when you have someone who’s really into that kind of thing, I just let him fly. I keep an eye on the numbers for him and make sure he’s not spending too much or not undercharging for anything.

But other than that, I just let him do his thing and he gets great feedback with the wine.

Have you yourself been to Italy?

You know what? I’ve never been to Italy, and now everyone’s going to completely discredit everything I said. But no, I’ve never been to Italy yet. I’ve worked in a lot of very good Italian restaurants, but I’ve yet to make it to Italy.

We keep saying we’re going to go, but with the kids it’s so hard to find find time, especially because selfishly we want to go and, drink all the wine, eat all the cheese, eat all the food, and it’s, you get to deal with nap time and jet lag, and We’ve not found a time just yet.

Your time will come.

I just came back from Napoli and I actually lived in Milan when I was in graduate school. So I’ve had quite a bit of experience there, but you’re right. It’s like we didn’t take our kids to Europe until I’ve got a 17 year old and a 19 year old and we just came back. So I think that there’s a right time when you have a family so that they can get the full immersion and enjoy the experience and get the culture.

But that’ll come for you, I’m sure. But still, it’s gratifying to be part of something that you care about so much. And I’m passionate about Italian food. It’s my favorite cuisine.

It’s great. It’s amazing. It’s, there’s, It’s such an in depth thing. People say that it’s, it can be so simplistic and it really can be, but if it’s not done perfectly, it’s horrible.

The cacio e pepe alone, if it’s not a perfect cacio e pepe, it’s greasy. It’s not, it’s not good. But when you do it perfectly, you can sit there and go, whoa, that was amazing. And it’s the simplest dish in the world, right?

You definitely praised your team, and we talked a lot a bit about, how they round out your kitchen, they’re trained in multiple stations, they make your job easier.

Have you had any challenges with labor? Because so many restaurants still are.

Oh yeah, no, listen, we, I’m very lucky right now. But I’ve definitely, we had very hard times of getting the staff in, for a long time it was, you’d train someone up you’d give them a couple of months of really, all of your time, get them exactly where you want them.

And then all of a sudden there’s just been no call, no show, and you just left scrambling again. And there’s no phone calls from them. There’s no, there’s radio silence. They try and steal some of your cooks, some of your front of house people. It’s. It was really hard for quite a long time. I’ve been very lucky and I’m on word right now, just in case, but I’ve been very lucky over the past, I’d say about year.

They have just been so loyal. And they are incredible. I don’t have enough good things to say about them because it’s just, I could spend the whole podcast talking about how hard they work for me and how good people they are. But yeah, there’s definitely been times where it’s just, you sit there and go, how am I going to stay open?

How can I keep this menu going the way it is? Because. I don’t have the people that can execute it or show up to work. I think it’s just it’s a yo. It’s up and it’s down. It’s just, I think right now we’re up, so I’m going to be happy, but I’m sure it will happen again soon where I lose a few people and then I’m back at a, the lowest of my low.

Yeah. Would you say you’ve recruited in the past and you’ve got some great people and you say, who else do you know that might be looking for a job that fits our culture, that may fit the. Teamwork and the respect thing and that are trainable. And they say, oh, we recommend so and and you bring that person in and it works.

Is that a good thing if someone recommends someone else?

I think it’s a good thing. I don’t, for kitchen, I don’t use the online apps or anything. Or the, Any kind of website to help hire, it’s all recommendation. And I think it helps for us because they hold them a lot more, again, accountable.

It’s Oh, I brought this person in, you need to work hard. And they really want to make sure. Reflection on them. Reflection on them. Yeah. They’re friends, some of them are family. They don’t want to make their siblings or their friends look bad at all. So it’s helped us big time.

That’s tremendous. Excellent advice. How about recognizing people for outstanding performance going above and beyond? Are there any regular programs where you praise people, give them rewards or recognition?

Do a lot for, especially busy season for like front of house, let’s say where I’ve got this steak special or whatever it may be.

And if you can sell the most of the night, you get at the end, if you can sell five plus and you sell the most, then you get whatever you want on the menu, except for maybe I’ve got a double huge steak. Can’t have that, but anything else you can have. So that definitely helps because it motivates them.

And it becomes a bit of a game for them. But for kitchen guys, I take them out every now and then, What I do a lot is we do a lot of pop ups in the summer. Last year we did quite a few, and one was in Nantucket, one was in the Hamptons. So the guys who had A, been working really hard and working for a long time, I’m like, do you guys want to come with me for two weeks for a beach vacation?

Essentially you’ll work four days out the week. And then the rest of the time you have a house sorted out and you can do whatever you want, have the best time in the world just show up to work. So when those opportunities come up, I always use the guys who I know work really hard and really care.

And it, they love it. It’s, I love doing it with them. We have a great time together. And again, it’s just an experience for them where they get this cool house and they can go to the beach, get some oysters. And do whatever they want for the weekend.

Wow. That sounds fantastic. And what a perk that is too.

Tell us how the pop up idea works. Is it always the same space or location or how do you get a space that just happens to be open and you do a pop up and then is it a word of mouth thing that people find it or it’s a, it’s promoted well in advance and they know that you’re going to be there for these two weeks, tell us, there sounds like there’s some logistics involved there.

Oh yeah, there’s a lot. It’s it’s always promoted from a PR company or whatever. So there’s one I did for a hotel in Nantucket. Again, they promoted it. They flew us out and they took over our lodging. And then from within their hotel, they promoted it by telling all the guests, Oh, we’re doing this pop up restaurant of Botino in the main dining room.

And then it went from there. One of the Hamptons was a, See a summer long pop up. So every restaurant that they chose did two weeks in the restaurant. And it was their regular restaurant from the lunch service. And then for dinner, the pop up took over for five days out of the week or four days out of the week.

And it was all promoted from their social media, their PR companies. And it, that got a lot of traction because all of a sudden, they’re looking at you from the Hamptons now and there’s a whole new customers coming over. It was a lot of moving parts, but luckily they take care of that.

We just got to take care of the food and shipping it all over.

Sure. And I’m sure you get some regulars as well, because so many Manhattanites spend time in the summer in the Hamptons and it’s just, and the buzz in New York is about the hottest thing in the Hamptons too. So it’s all social media, but it’s also word of mouth.

Personally too, that sounds really exciting. What a great opportunity for your team to give them that kind of opportunity. And it gives those others something to shoot for saying, I want to be part of that next time. And

that

is, that is a huge benefit. Fantastic. Chef, any advice for young people coming up in this business that are cooking now, but they might be a dishwasher or they might be a line cook, but they really aspire to become something more.

What would you say to those people?

Honestly, I would say you just got to keep your head down and learn everything from everyone. Even if you don’t particularly like the person that you’re listening to, because let’s be honest, no one likes their boss. Everyone can do bad things better than the boss.

Listen to them, because there’s so much you can learn from each chef, even cooks. A certain way to saute, a certain way to chop something or clean something. There’s always corners and ways to make your job much, make yourself much faster at your job. I just have to say, you have to be a sponge and learn every single thing you can from every single person, because the second you think you can’t learn anything from anyone else, you’re going to be dead in the water.

You just have to just take everything from people. A lot of people want to learn as well. They, they want to teach you whether they’re being particularly nice about it. That’s one thing, but when you’re being pushed and you think someone’s just riding you, it’s very much so they’re trying to make their lives a bit easier as well.

And you can help them and be faster. It’s all about just not building a wall of saying, I can’t learn anything else. You just have to understand you can always learn more.

I’m going to quote a UK expression and say, that’s just brilliant, chef. That’s excellent advice. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you.

And thank you very much for having me. It’s a lot of fun.

Thanks so much to our audience for tuning in. That was the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. We can’t wait to see y’all in the next episode. Stay tuned, stay well, and we will see you then.

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